Hi folks, newbie here. Just a few things, on the second heating you give 72 degrees Farenheit which is apparently 22 Centigrade. Is that correct? as you use Centigrade in all your other temps.
Secondly, a brief summary of a ricotta method I found on another site.
Cover your whey and leave (in a non-reactive pan) for 24 hours to acidify.
Heat in a thick pan or double boiler (at about 80 Centigrade/180 Farenheit it will start to foam up) when it gets to 95C/203F remove from heat, DO NOT ALLOW TO BOIL as the hot foam will boil over, cover and allow to cool.
DO NOT STIR. You will now have a greeny-yellow liquid with little cloud-like bits in, this is your ricotta. You now have to seperate the two with as little disturbance as possible to reduce the eventual straining time.
If the ricotta has all sank, remove much ot the (now very low protein) whey which you can then feed to your chickens/goats etc. or throw away, pour the remainder into a muslin or fine cotton sheet, tie and hang over a bowl to drain for maybe 6-12 hours.
If the ricotta is floating about, fish it out with a fine seive then drain the remainder as above, and Hey Presto apparently.
If you have a cheese or wine/cider press I'm sure that would improve things too. I'm making a cider press for Cyser (Apple mead) -making using a strong box frame and a bottle-jack so I might try that. I also have this strange feeling I have seen some wierd recipe for making wine with whey, though I think If I were that desperate, I would try boiling my leather running shoes first.
Original article was on
http://biology.clc.uc.edu/fankhauser/Ch ... tta_00.htm
Regarding the taste, maybe the Philly people use a different method to seperate initially. I know a woman in France who does her goats cheese using some chemical and has to near-boil it for about 15 minutes to seperate it. Her cheese has the same nice tang as Philly so maybe it's that. Adding seasoning and things can vastly improve the flavour too. I recently tried a Mint goats cheese from the Sunday market in Cambridge which was very strange but quite nice in small amounts so who knows.
The sour-cream is just that. cream soured by Lactic acid, so maybe they use that as well???
Great stuff, and more cheese please
) but got there in the end with some calcium chloride (it was an epic 6 hour 'cheeseday' trying to get that stuff to curdle). It's currently in draining moulds but should be ready in a week or two. We're planning to eat some fresh & store some to dry out into the crumbly chevre type.
